Thomas Hobbes was a philosopher who greatly influenced the ideas in the Declaration of Independence. Hobbes saw "the pursuit of happiness" as a topic worth debating. On one side of the idea of happiness, Hobbes wrote "...there is no greater signe of the equall distribution of any thing, than that every man is contented with his share (Hobbes 43)." What this means is, to Hobbes, every man should already be happy with what they have, or at least every man should be

What the ideals of Locke draw up is a situation where man works for a right to his property, which translates into happiness. With this, government is an organized system for protecting this happiness. It all comes down to Man having the right to "pursue happiness," with the pursuit being the labor and the happiness being the possessions achieved through the labor.

Much of Marx's thought is based on the downfall of a "real" democratic state. It is doubtful that Marx would have argued with "democracy" in pure form, but the government that existed was a far cry from "pure." Marx believed that the bourgeois that controlled government and property in such a state was unjust and unfair. Property itself, as Marx argued, was only realized by the small percentage of people that made up the bourgeois. Therefore, to Marx, under the conditions of his time, happiness could never truly by obtained by the common workingman.

In Hobbes philosophy, he also theorized on the topic of war and peace. Because Hobbes believed in man's eternal struggle for survival, he concluded that, in nature, man was constantly at war against all other men. Peace, according to Hobbes, was only obtained through leaders, organization, and social contract. Through this idea, Hobbes theorized that men clump together for two reasons: power and happiness. Therefore, through organization comes a common peace for man, and through this peace, men gains power and therefore happiness. According to Hobbes "...the life of man, solitary poore, nasty, brutish, and short (Hobbes 44)." The general idea for Hobbes, then, was that the "pursuit of happiness" is achieved for mankind through organization and through contentment of position.

Another important idea of Marxism is that of the individual working for the good of the state. In this opinion, happiness brings on a new meaning. According to this ideal, happiness might be achieved by bettering the state with work, and, therefore, bettering oneself. The pursuit, then, would again be in the labor, which every man would not only have a right to, but also a responsibility for.

Therefore, Marx might see "the pursuit of happiness" as a fundamental right that men are born with in a communist state, but one that is unobtainable by the working class in a democracy. Also, the definition of "happiness," according to Marx, would be a social state in which all men are truly treated equal, and where no man oppresses another through restraints such as corrupt government

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Approximate Word count = 2212
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)